


gyuwon | the spoils of war

by plincess_cho (ai_hao)



Category: Super Junior
Genre: AU, Army AU, Gen, Gyuwon, Wonkyu, flangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23636194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_hao/pseuds/plincess_cho
Summary: The story of Siwon and Kyuhyun is the story of two people who were thrown together into a war that they didn’t even know if they agreed with that had left them with trauma they couldn’t seem to shake.An AU.
Relationships: Cho Kyuhyun/Choi Siwon
Comments: 14
Kudos: 27





	gyuwon | the spoils of war

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heeyumyum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heeyumyum/gifts).



> Inspired by Yumi's [Netflix edits](https://twitter.com/heeyumyum/status/1249742498748084225?s=20)

The story of Siwon and Kyuhyun is the story of two people who were thrown together into a war that they didn’t even know if they agreed with that had left them with trauma they couldn’t seem to shake. 

They had been dumb kids when the war had started. To two teenage boys hopped up on adrenalines and hormones and convinced of their own immortality, joining the army had sounded so exciting, so exotic. They had been patriots, they had been idealistic, and they had been idiots.

They’d left on the same train out of Seoul, headed for Busan. They’d all been laughing and joking and maybe even a little drunk from the night before, as if they were leaving for holiday rather than the battlefield. The two had bonded quickly during the training and then became inseparable out on the battlefield. 

Neither had ever had a brother, and they both wondered if this is what it would be like: To be known so deeply, to be trusted so completely.

But then suddenly, they were staring death in the face, and war hadn’t seemed fun anymore. War was a cruel mistress, exacting a price from everyone who came to play her game.

And they had paid her price, Siwon with his sanity, Kyuhyun with his leg.

The two men who had arrived back in Seoul had not been the same two boys that had left so jovially years before. They had come back broken and haunted with the ghosts of the battlefield. Their families saw it, but everyone had pretended everything was normal. The sooner life could get back to normal, the sooner the two of them would be back to normal.

Or would they?

For Siwon, the nightmares would lever leave. They could be dulled with medication, but never completely eradicated. At first, his wife had been sympathetic and tender, shaking him awake from his screams and holding him until he fell back asleep. But as the years had gone on, her patience had waned until one day, it had disappeared completely. 

Siwon had returned from work to find his wife sitting in the parlor wearing her traveling jacket and shoes. Two suitcases sat at her feet. 

“I’m leaving,” she had announced, her voice devoid of any emotion. “Kim Jungho has asked me to marry him, and I’ve accepted.” When Siwon didn’t reply, she had continued, “I’ve exhausted my time with you. I need someone more stable, more secure. Someone who isn’t… broken.”

Siwon had remained silent, his eyes fixed on the worn patch on the floor. He should have fought for her, should have tried to make her stay, but he had known then that there had been no hope for their marriage. She had wanted someone who she could fix, and Siwon had proven to be unfixable. 

She’d left the house without even a farewell embrace, leaving Siwon all alone in his empty house, waiting for the demons to return. 

Kyuhyun too had been married for a while, after falling in love with the nurse who had tended to him following the loss of his leg. Siwon had stood up for him at the wedding as his best man, beaming as he’d watched Kyuhyun tear him with emotion as his bride walked down the aisle. Siwon had stood up for him at the funeral three years later as a pallbearer after she had died while giving birth. The baby had died a few days later.

They’d both lost so much, and for what? Had the war even been worth it? They say that we had won, but had we?

But Siwon had never lost Kyuhyun.

Even in the mountains with enemy fire raining down on them, he had never lost Kyuhyun. 

It had been Siwon who had pulled Kyuhyun away from the grenade right before it had exploded, and it had been Siwon who had carried him on his back for miles until they’d reached the medic tent. Kyuhyun had lost a lot of blood by the time they had made it to the base, and the medics had rushed him into the tent for emergency surgery. Siwon had collapsed outside, falling onto his knees to pray fervently for God to save the life of the only brother he had ever known.

Kyuhyun had always credited Siwon for saving his life, but as Siwon sits in the community room at their elder care facility watching Kyuhyun furrow his brow at a newspaper puzzle, he comes to the conclusion that Kyuhyun had saved his life instead.

After all, it had been Kyuhyun who had given him the endurance to make it home without eating his own gun, making Siwon promise that they would be on the train back to Seoul together so that Siwon could take him to see his own parents so he wouldn’t have to face them alone with a bandaged leg and medical discharge papers. 

It had been Kyuhyun who had stayed in touch after the war had ended, the only member of their platoon to do so. He had been adamant about it, telling Siwon that he had almost lost him once on the battlefield and he wasn’t about to lose him again.

And it had been Kyuhyun whom Siwon had called first after his wife had left. 

They’d moved into the care facility together after Kyuhyun had an alarming bout with pneumonia. He had grown far too weak to take care of himself, and Siwon had offered to move in with him. They’d found no use for their separate apartments in their old age, and Kyuhyun hadn’t wanted to go alone.

They spend long afternoons walking through the grounds, with Siwon pushing Kyuhyun’s wheelchair slowly down the paths. Kyuhyun had given up his prosthesis years earlier, having grown too weak to maintain and attach it properly. 

There are quite a few other war veterans at the care facility, many who have lost limbs or senses themselves. Some want to talk about the war incessantly, and others try to pretend like it hadn’t happened. The war had taken something from all of them, and each man’s story holds more trauma and heartache than anyone should have to bear alone.

All the talk of the war unsettles Siwon. He manages to hold himself together in front of the others, but Kyuhyun hears him scream in the middle of the night, lost in a world of demons far more tortuous than the ones they had encountered in the dark of the night on enemy soil. 

It’s Kyuhyun who grabs for his crutch to hobble into the next room. He sits on the edge of Siwon’s bed and shakes Siwon’s shoulder gently until his screams subside. Siwon shifts uncomfortably, caught in that disorienting place between sleep and wake, but Kyuhyun’s hand remains a comforting presence on his shoulder. He starts to sing one of the lullabies his mother used to sing for him as a child, his voice low and soft. In a few minutes, Siwon will drift back into the land of dreams, the demons having fled.

Kyuhyun is the only one who can stave off his night terrors.

Kyuhyun is the only one who has ever tried.

“It’s bittersweet,” one of their favorite nurses will say as she meets with their families to deliver the bad news. “It seems they passed within only a few minutes of each other. Kyuhyun died of heart failure, and Siwon passed away a few minutes later. We found them in their apartment together, Siwon holding Kyuhyun.”

“What did Siwon die of?” his cousin will ask.

“As best I can tell,” the nurse will say, “he died of a broken heart. Once his reason for living had died, he died with him.”

The families will nod solemnly, the women dabbing their eyes with tissues. Funeral arrangements will be made, burial plots will be consulted. With no wife or surviving children, there will be no family to consider, both their parents having passed long before. 

In the end, the surviving relatives will opt for cremation and two adjacent glass cases at the facility in the nearby memorial park. Both will have photos of them in their army uniforms taken before leaving for war along with small collections of personal effects. There will be funeral processions and the traditional mourning period, but eventually the two will be set away in their glass cases for their final rest.

So in the end, the story of Siwon and Kyuhyun is the story of two people who were thrown together into a war that had left them with a bond that would never be broken, even in death. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! 💕
> 
> Find me on twitter [here](twitter.com/plincess_cho) and other gyuwon fics [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Cho+Kyuhyun%2FChoi+Siwon&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&user_id=ai_hao).


End file.
